Conditional offer of fixed penalty and the 28-day window
Checked 17 July 2026 · How we check our figures
What it is
A conditional offer is the fixed penalty that arrives by post where no ticket was handed over at the roadside, s. 75 Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988: pay within 28 days and, for endorsable offences, meet the identification requirements, and, subject to a driving record check, liability to conviction is discharged, s. 75(8A). Drivers know it as the 100-pound letter. It looks like the roadside ticket's twin and escalates differently: ignore a constable's notice and the sum plus half is registered as a fine; ignore this one and, once the 28 days end, the case can go to prosecution, s. 76(4).
Reading the notice
The offer must give the particulars, state the amount, and say in terms that proceedings cannot start until 28 days after the date of issue, or a longer stated period, s. 75(7); that date, not the postmark, sets every clock on the page.
Since 30 November 2022 the endorsable-offence condition is identification details, name, date of birth and licence number, in place of sending in the licence, s. 75(8B) and (8C); older walkthroughs still describe the envelope.
Nothing on the letter promises acceptance: the payment is checked against the driving record, and where a totting ban would follow conviction the money goes back and prosecution opens, s. 76(3), with the check assuming the lowest points in any range, s. 76(6).
The decision in front of you
Pay and identify within 28 days: the sum on the letter and 3 points for speeding (gov.uk, checked 2026-07-16), no court and no uplift; the points count for totting exactly as court points do, s. 77A(9).
Take a course where one is offered instead: it costs about the same as the ticket and adds no points, the offer letter from the force carries its own booking clock, and the trade-offs live in the speed awareness course guide.
Contest it by paying nothing and letting the prosecution come: the Single Justice Procedure Notice that typically follows brings the plea options and their clocks, covered in the single justice guide, with the income maths in the fine bands guide.
Silence spends the 28 days and then leaves the door open to prosecution, s. 76(4); there is no one-and-a-half-times registration on this route, only the court file that follows.
What happens next
A clean payment with identification ends it: the Secretary of State endorses the driving record, s. 77A, and the matter cannot come back as a prosecution, s. 76(2).
A returned payment near the twelve-point line is not a refund but a referral: the record check found a totting ban in prospect, s. 76(3), and the arithmetic of the threshold lives in the totting up guide.
No payment means the prosecution route, where the written charge must still come within the 6-month limit of s. 127 Magistrates' Courts Act 1980, picked apart in the single justice guide.
The numbers
The current fixed penalty sums for speeding: see the speeding calculator at /fines/speeding, figures dated there; the standard endorsement is 3 points (gov.uk, checked 2026-07-16).
The offer's moratorium: proceedings cannot start until 28 days after issue, or longer where the offer says so (s. 75(7)(c) RTOA 1988).
Points from a paid offer are treated as if imposed on conviction, including for totting (s. 77A(9) RTOA 1988).
The deadlines
28 days from the date of issue to pay and meet the identification requirements, or a longer period stated in the offer, s. 75(8A).
The identification-details regime dates from 30 November 2022, Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, s. 94; offers issued since ask for name, date of birth and licence number.
On the prosecution route the written charge still needs to come within 6 months of the offence, s. 127 Magistrates' Courts Act 1980.
What people get wrong
Treating it like the constable's ticket and waiting for a registered fine at one and a half times: that escalation belongs to the roadside notice, s. 55(3); this letter's silence ends in a prosecution instead, s. 76(4).
Paying but skipping the identification details: the conditions of s. 75(8A) are then unmet and the discharge never happens, leaving the case open.
Paying close to twelve points in the hope of settling first: the record check returns the money and opens prosecution, s. 76(3), and the threshold mechanics sit in the totting up guide.
Authority
ss. 75, 76 and 77A Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988, as amended by the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, s. 94; s. 55 Road Traffic Offenders Act 1988; s. 127 Magistrates' Courts Act 1980; gov.uk